The Rookery
by Jethanna
Summary: Major spoilers for 3rd Maximum Ride book. The flock are on the road again with no worries and no erasers...but Max can't help but think she's forgotten something... My first FanFic, contains own characters!
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: okay, well this is my first fan fiction, so bear with me! Sorry if you don't like own characters, but mine are gonna be pretty main characters. This contains major spoilers if you haven't already read the third Maximum Ride book, which rocks by the way, and this fic attempts to pick up where it left off… _

_Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, places or concepts, except Rook and Mammoth, they're mine due to too much free time!_

God I love flying. Seriously, it's the best feeling in the world. I love soaring above the patchwork jumble of towns below me. I love coasting on air currents. I love flying in tight formation, just skimming the tops of trees. I just _love_ flying. Hey, and for once, no-one's after us.

For all you who are new to this, I'm Max, I'm fourteen; I'm in charge of five other kids of varying ages. Oh yeah, we all have wings. We are: myself, Fang (fourteen), Iggy (fourteen and blind), Nudge ( eleven and _never_ stops talking), the Gasman (eight) and Angel who's six and can not only read minds but can control them too. Scary.

So here's the deal. We have just saved half of the world's population from certain destruction by the egomaniacal Director of Itex. Whoop whoop, go us! After rejoining Fang and the guys in the good old' USA we took a trip to my mum's house. Yup, my mum. The one good thing that came out of our trip to Germany was that I found out who my parents are! So we all hung out at with Mum, and my half sister Ella. But being the restless, mutant, bird freaks that we are, we left again. But don't worry mum, we'll be back, you can't get rid of me that easily.

Why did we leave? I'm not quite sure, but I had this overwhelming sense that there was something I'd forgotten. Do I know what I've forgotten? Nope. I haven't the foggiest.

Rook stretched, grudgingly exchanging sleep for wakefulness. She yawned and looked around as she sat up. Glancing to the other bed, she found Mammoth still in the grip of sleep. Muttering as she climbed out of bed, she made her way downstairs towards the kitchen. She turned on the radio and sat staring out of the window not paying any attention to what the newsreader was telling her.

The door opened and Ari walked in looking exhausted, even though he had fallen asleep over twelve hours ago.

"Hey. Sleep well?" Rook asked without moving her gaze from the clouds outside.

"No." Ari grunted, while he rummaged through cupboards. Rook jumped down and pulled out some bread.

"Toast, cheese on toast, toasted sandwich, or bread and butter?" She asked putting two slices for herself in the toaster. When Ari didn't reply she pulled out four more to toast later and removed some bacon from the fridge. "You can have a bacon sarnie then if you're going to be like that. And eat some fruit" Ari obeyed her strict instructions, grabbing an apple and turning to stare out the window.

**Welcome to Fang's Blog**

**Today's Date: **Already too late!

**Guest number: **Still broken…

First of all I'd like to say a HUMONGOUS thank you to everyone who helped crash Itex and all their little companies, you contribution in kicking their asses was greatly appreciated!

Well, we're all back together. Just like the one big happy family that we are. We're back on the road (flying) after crashing for a while at Max's mum's place. Turns out that she's really nice and makes great chocolate chip cookies. Dunno where we're going, but it sure feels good to be flying again.

Keep up the protesting guys, and the grown-ups will have to listen to us! Remember, it's our world too!

-Fang

Fang sat back, sighing thoughtfully. Just then Iggy came up beside him. "What do you want, Ig?"

"Could you send an email to someone for me?" he said sitting down.

"Sure."

_Author's Note: well there it is, first chapter. Please tell me what you think and how I can improve!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: Hey, me again! Thank-you for the reviews, they're really helpful. Just to clear a few things up: I know Ari is dead, I know Max and the Flock are the only mutants left; but hopefully things will get explained as the story goes on! Thanks for reading!_

_Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, places or concepts, except Rook and Mammoth, they're mine due to too much free time!_

You know what's great about Itex being destroyed? No more annoying Voice to keep me up at night with pointless and annoying ramblings. Since I found out that the Voice was Jeb, well to be frank, it's a bit of a let down. I mean I was all for some really cool reason like… well I don't know what I was expecting, but Jeb certainly wasn't it!

I rolled over and onto my back. Although I know the Voice is Jeb, and I find it really annoying don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't mind it telling me what I had forgotten. I mean, I passed on eternal hot chocolate chip cookies! What is wrong with me? I shifted restlessly and tried to think of what I could have possibly forgotten. Let's check my trusty To-Do-List:

1)Destroy Itex

2)Save the World

3)Meet up with Fang and the guys

4)Go to Arizona to hang with my mum

Check, check, check, and check. Hmm, nope I give up. _Hey Voice_, I called in my head. No reply, big surprise. _Not_

I rolled onto my side and checked the time. My watch started in five minutes. Might as well get up.

Rook looked at Ari across the table. Considering he was permanently covered in fur, he looked healthy. Well as healthy as an expired, perpetually morphed Eraser can do. Rook sighed and picked up the plates moving to take them to the kitchen when she was stopped by a large hand removing them. She looked up at Mammoth surprised, he never helped: he just lazed around and went out drinking with his so called friends. "Take him to the park, Rook. He needs a day out." The words were so softly spoken that Rook though she had imagined them, until Mammoth gently pushed her towards Ari, "Go on."

Rook had to practically drag Ari out of the house, but once he was outside Rook had to run to catch up, cursing once again being the shortest. She took him to the park, pushed the swings for him and _made_ him run. He would get better, if it was the last thing she did, Rook would make him so healthy and happy that his father wouldn't believe it when Ari went home.

Cradling his mug of tea, Mammoth made his way upstairs again. He sat down at the computer and shook the mouse. Music crashed out of the speakers at a deafening volume, Mammoth growled and turned it down, moving the mouse to check his emails. Hmm, Rook had a new one. That was strange no one ever emailed Rook, no one ever rang her and no one ever texted her. It was almost like she had no friends. _Ah, poor girl_, thought Mammoth as he ignored the email and proceeded to surf the internet.

Rook and Ari came back some time around lunchtime, laughing and completely exhausted. Mammoth smiled, she was getting better.

Max wasn't sleeping. Fang sighed and jumped down from his tree just as Max got up. "Go and sleep" Fang told her.

"What do you think I've been doing?" Fang sighed; she always had to be stubborn.

"Thinking too hard and not getting enough sleep. Now go and try to sleep, I'll take your watch." Max glared at Fang, but she went back to her spot in between Nudge and Angel.

Fang turned on the laptop. He turned it back off. He sighed, feeling a wave of exasperation wash over him. Why? He didn't know. However he did know that this particular feeling hadn't occurred in that way for some years now.

What could have brought it on?

**To: Rook**

**From: Fang**

**Subject: Hiya**

Hey Rook, Iggy here.

Just wondering where you are, if you're alright and, well, if you're still around.

I don't know if this email address will work. I don't know if you're alive to receive this email.

Please email back. I need to hear from you.

Iggy

P.S. Tell Mammoth I said Hi.

Rook sat back. She smiled and clicked the reply button.

_Author's Note: wow, second chapter! Please review: tell me what you think and how I can improve! Thanks for reading, Jet x_


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: Hiya! 3__rd__ chapter! Woot woot. I'm going to say a BIG thank you to Katie-3llen for her idea for this chapter, Thank-you!!! Anyway…This chapter is going to be from Rooks POV 'cos…'cos I need to get her and Mammoth's characters across. Thanks for reading!_

_Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, places or concepts, except Rook and Mammoth, they're mine due to too much free time!_

Date: **Today!**

**Dear Diary, **

**My name is Rook and I am 14 and short.**

**That sounds really stupid.**

**Dear Mammoth ('cos I know you're just going to read this anyway.)**

**Today I took Ari to the park. We had lots of fun. **

**Today I made Ari a bacon sandwich. He ate it all.**

**Today Mammoth actually helped out! Shock, horror, disaster!**

**Today…**

**Today I got an email from Iggy; which is great because I haven't heard from him in years. However, now I really want to see him and Fang and Max and Gazzy and Angel, and especially Nudge: we haven't talked in, like, forever! So I sent him an email back in reply. I already have an evil plot forming mwahahaha! Well it's not that evil…but you get the gist. Right?**

**Anyway. So I'm writing this after dinner. Mammoth is out (again) and Ari is on the computer (again) playing games. Earlier today Ari walked in when I was writing the reply to Iggy, and well, he completely freaked out.**

**So I'm typing away, la la la. Ari walks in. "Hi Ari" I said and in case he didn't hear me, I waved as well. "Watcha doing?" he said, well actually he said 'what are you doing?' but that's boring! And I said "emailing some friends" and then he said "who?" and I said (my English teacher isn't gonna be proud of this grammar is she? Ah well I'm suspended anyway…back to my gripping tale of how Ari freaked out) "You've got eyes haven't you? Look in the send box!" So he looked**

**And looked**

**And looked**

**And looked.**

**And then I remembered that he can't read, and he can only just about spell his name. so I read it out to him, except he didn't hear me cos he was looking for letters he recognised and mumbling to himself. I poked him and told him again.**

**Commence freak out!**

"**What?" **

"**It's from Iggy." I repeated**

**He looked at the screen again. Why, I don't know. He turned around and stormed out of the room.**

**To cut a long story short: I chased him into the kitchen where Ari started yelling at me about how this was betraying his trust and that he didn't want me communicating with Fang or Iggy. I asked why and he told me that he didn't get along with Fang. I told him, No duh! Because Fang always holds a grudge, especially concerning Max, and then Ari started yelling and at that point I tuned out. Then Mammoth got off his lazy ass and came to see what Ari was yelling about. By this time I had decided that this 'yelling' looked quite fun and was attempting to yell back. **

**Mammoth put his hand over Ari's mouth and told him to shut it. I was having to much fun trying to yell and ignored him. Seeing as now Ari wasn't saying anything and the radio was off, the only sound was my hoarse whispers, i.e. yelling. I stopped to breathe and looked at them. Gee, who knew not being able to talk properly was such fun!**

**After we had all stopped laughing, we went our separate ways. Mammoth took his own advice and took Ari to the cinema; and I went back to my email.**

**I finished my email to Iggy. Then I got to thinking about the last time I had seen the flock. It had been years ago. Mammoth claims he doesn't remember any of this, so I'm going to write it down. Not that I can ever forget…**

**It was just a regular day at the School. Oh you know: caged illegal mutant hybrids and illegal medical testing, just as usual. Nothing happened that day. Everything broke that night. I say broke, I mean shattered. The whitecoats had devised a new exercise for the Erasers it was called: Lets-chain-a-bird-kid-by-the-neck-and-see-if-it-can-get-away! It was SO much fun. Not. I was the first bird kid up, you know, me being the shortest of the older kids. The Runt. So I had a great iron collar around my neck connected to a chain which was securely fastened to the ground. Then they released the Erasers.**

**I would love to say my life flashed right before my eyes, but it didn't. Anyway it would have been boring. I jumped and dodged, I kicked and punched, hey I even bit those darn Erasers. During my unsuccessful fight with the Erasers, my trusty brother Mammoth had busted his way out of the cage where they were holding the rest of the flock. I bet those whitecoats were seriously rethinking the decision to give him steroids since birth.**

**By this time I was in the air and seasonably safe. Well until some moron came and yanked on the chain repeatedly while the flock were kicking some serious Eraser butt. The repeated chain yanking caused pain and blood. I couldn't tell what was happening and then I passed out. When I woke up I was on the ground with Mammoth kneeling over me and trying to fix my throat, which had been ripped open. After that we left, the flock had already been rounded up, and they thought I was dead.**

**So here we are. I can't talk above a whisper, and my sixteen year old brother is a giant. Me and my brother Mammoth, in a house in a suburb in England; where they can never find us. Because I deleted all our files, it's like we don't exist.**

**Peace out**

**Rook.**

**P.S. Mammoth, I got suspended for repeatedly disrupting my class by refusing to speak above a whisper. Psht, schools, who needs 'em?**

_Author's Note: hehe, hopefully this explained some stuff. Thanks for reading, please tell me if you liked it (or not) and how I can improve!_


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note: Hey! Wow, jeez it's been a while! Sorry for the late, late update… I blame school. As usual: Thanks for taking the time to read this, reviews are more than greatly appreciated and I own none of the characters or concepts except for Mammoth and Rook, they're mine:D_

**Date: I know what it isn't…**

**Dear Ari**

**I am writing this diary entry to you because my brother is a stupid moose and wrote a reply to my last entry (:P go away Mammoth!). Enjoy.**

**Today I found Mammoth reading my diary, ooooh. Smile so I waved and walked out again.**

**Today I took Ari to play football down the park. Except he kept complaining about having the wrong type of ball. After a while I managed to decipher his mismatch of words. Apparently they were perfectly normal, but I know better because I'm armed with my trusty Expired-7-Year-Old-American-Eraser to English dictionary, which I shall be publishing next year to co-inside with the release of Mammoth's "how-to" book on basic hybrid medical junk. All the non-important stuff like diet, illness, house-training, exercise, and even fatal wounds and death. It's going to be called: "Your Genetically-Mutated-Freak and You". I think it's quite catchy.**

**Back to my amazing adventure of de-coding Ari's rant! So he's talking about football and running and touchdowns and quarter-pounders, sorry I mean quarter-backs. Did I write that right? I finally managed to realise that he was talking about American football! After telling him we were going to play "soccer" things improved. As Ari is a pretty deprived child, we didn't launch into a full one-on-one mini football match. It was more of a kick around. After kicking the ball to kingdom come (i.e. the garden behind the park) we walked home.**

**Today I taught Mammoth how to grill bread with cheese. I am truly a miracle worker! Stupid boy tried to slice the pre-sliced bread… and then he tried to grate the bread and put it on the cheese. It continues to amaze me how domestically inept my dear older brother is. Nah nah nah nah nah:P ha-ha take that Mammoth you silly boy! And stop reading my diary! (not you Ari)**

**Tum ti tum tum ti tum tum tum. So…. I'm out. Its only lunchtime and I know my life is incredibly exciting and all that but, you know, these things don't happen all the time!!!!**

**Share the Love people, that or your chocolate. Your choice**

**Rook**

I smiled and put Rook's diary down. I bought it for her last year and she has only just decided to start using it. Oh well that's just her.

I put the diary back where I had found it and went downstairs. Rook was in the lounge watching the music channels and Ari was up at the dining room table with some paper and pencils. I think he was trying to write. I asked him what he was doing. Oh. He's drawing. Rriigghtt… okay.

i wandered around for a bit. Then I went out again.

The door banged shut and Rook sighed, he was going out. Again.

_Authors Note: Sorry it's short. Hopefully I'll post again soon. Tell me if you liked it or not, why and how I could improve. Thanks again, Jet x_


	5. Chapter 5

_Author's Note: Here's a short little chapter for you! By the way I made the address up! Thanks for reading, please review. Jet x_

**To: Fang**

**From: Rook**

**Subject: To the Iggmeister! (oh and Fangy-Wangy too)**

Hey Iggy

Rook here, I hope you and the flock are all okay. Me and Mammoth are doing fine here in England (ooh, bad grammar!). You should so come and visit!

If Fang is reading this to you…um…hmm. Okay: on **W**ednesday, our school took y**E**ar nine to the **H**ouses of P**A**rliament. It was **VE**ry interesting. I le**AR**ned a lot of **I**nformation which will be useful in our **P**roject. **L**ots of the p**E**ople in my cl**AS**s found it r**E**ally boring. I didn'**T**, do**E**s that make me nerdy? **L**o**L**. Hmm I think my computer needs fixing, it keeps making things bold and I can't put them back. Does **Max **know what's wrong?

Anyway. How's life in America? Mammoth said that's Fang's got a blog. Haha I find that funny. :P

We have so much to catch up on! Oh, get an instant messenger! Mammoth's IM address is: Furry (with a capital 'F') underscore Elephant (with a capital 'E') 'at' sign grreskyes 'dot' co 'dot' uk. Hehe, I made it for him :D

Email back!

Love from

Rook x

P.S.

Mammoth says Hi too.


End file.
